Mirror, Mirror
by girliedragon
Summary: An odd little ficlet. A bit angsty. Oneshot.


Wow. This one is the most R-rated I've ever written.

Don't read too much into it. The italics are what she sees.

* * *

She knew why she came back, night after night. She knew why she created that spell keyed to her, just to her, to duplicate the Mirror and add sound so she wouldn't even have to leave the soft shrouded safety of her bed. She knew what she saw and why she saw it. 

Every night, she'd whisper the spell as soon as it was safe and nothing could penetrate the curtains around her bed, flimsy as they looked. Every night, she gazed into the depths of her own Mirror of Erised and was fascinated anew. Every night, she watched her secret dreams played out.

_"I love you," he whispered in her ear, one hand tangled in her hair and the other lightly placed on her hip, thumbs moving gently in unison. "Hermione..." She closed her eyes in bliss and turned to kiss the side of his mouth. "Love you too," she murmured back, reaching up to touch his star-pale hair, bright and subtle at the same time, and always so silky. He responded with his tongue on her jaw, and was impossibly gentle._

Sometimes he was fucking her, and sometimes he was holding her so close, and sometimes they were doing normal couple things. Some nights she touched herself, watching, biting her lip as she came almost silently again and again; some nights she just stared at the dimly flickering images. Every night, tears slid down her emotionless face. She wasn't sure why. It hurt to watch, but she always did, hours past midnight. At last, she'd banish it all with a flick of her wand and sleep. She liked sleeping, dreaming. It was almost better than the Mirror, but nowhere near as reliably what she craved.

_He bit her neck, smoky eyes narrowed with possessive pleasure. "Mine. Always. My Hermione." She willingly turned onto her back, moaning as he began to move in and out of her again. "Yes...fuck, yes..." She wasn't sure who had gasped the words aloud, but it didn't matter when she was so fucking high on him and his touch and his gorgeous grey eyes._

It was the little things. None had ever said it to her face, but she'd dimly come to realize that as far as Hogwarts was concerned Hermione Granger was a vaguely human-shaped book. An outside force. Too sexless and dry to be a girl. Too odd and prickly to be a friend. Too...Hermione to be human. She tried not to care. She tried not to be lonely. For the most part, she succeeded in performing well before others. She didn't know what she'd done before her Mirror.

_He'd laid out a picnic, and it was a stupid romantic thing to do. They sat and talked about life, intelligent discussions, the sort she loved. And he was stupidly romantic and closed each sentence with 'I love you.' "Yes, but have you considered the implications for the industry? I love you." And so on, and so forth. She thought it was really romantic, and really stupid, and loved him so much it hurt to see his aristocratic profile against the sunset because the boy was unfairly beautiful._

She was much more often alone now that she'd broken it off with Ron. He'd wanted her to be his girlfriend and she said yes, because she thought it would make her less alone. And then he ignored her more than before but expected her to be there every time he wanted a snog. Fortunately for her, it hadn't gone any further before she'd caught him with some Gryffindor. And then with some Ravenclaw fifth-year, the next week. It had taken a fortnight and two Hufflepuffs before she told him she was leaving. Harry had sided with Ron, with a half-apologetic, half-defiant glance at Hermione. She hadn't been invited to the Burrow over break, of course. Ginny was ignoring her and she didn't bother going to the Quidditch matches and really hadn't been anywhere but the library and her room for months. She thought she might refuse the Head Girl's badge if it was presented to her next year.

_They were both a little older, in a room somewhere - probably his, from the decor. Then again, their tastes were so similar...modern, clean-lined, but not without the small evidences of class and comfort. She was wrapped in a red oriental robe; he was already dressed in a black shirt and jeans. He looked nervous, kept glancing at her. As she tugged the knot on her robe tight, he crossed to her and took her hands in his. "How much do you love me?" She smiled up at him, suddenly unsure. "I love you more than I should. Is it enough?" Still holding her hands as though he thought she would try to run, he fell to his knees. "Is it enough to marry me?" There was a silence like the space between today and tomorrow, then she pounced on him, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing an almost incoherent mantra into his neck. "Yes, always yes, I love you, Draco, I love you so much."_

She sometimes hated her Mirror, but she knew why she came back every night. It was the closest to him she let herself hope to be.


End file.
